Cal let me down. It was actually early the next afternoon before he called me at my office.
“I’m not sure what you wanted me to find,” he said when I answered the phone.
“Nothing?” I asked. I honestly didn’t think he would unearth anything, but I was holding onto a sliver of hope. I was surprised at my disappointment.
“Not nothing. But not much either.” I could hear the tapping sound of Cal typing on the keyboard. I pictured him, sitting at one of his many monitors in a room cramped with computers and computer equipment, discarded takeout boxes and trash lying around, a film of dust on everything but the precious electronic equipment. And since Cal was practically a computer himself, he fit right in. “Most of the files you sent were standard real estate files. I didn’t notice anything fishy with any of them.”
“You said most.”
“Right. There were two that struck me as a little weird. Not illegal, just odd.”
“Odd how?”
“One of the buyers had an unusually short time to back out of the deal. Typically, you build into a contract a clause where you’re able to back out, or cover yourself if you can’t sell your home first. And if you really want the new house, you make sure there’s plenty of time for you to sell off your old one first. Or you put in a contingency that says you have to sell your old home before you purchase the new one. One of the contracts doesn’t seem to do that.”
“But that’s not illegal, right?” I asked.
“No, just unusual.”
“Which one?”
“Wilson,” he said.
“And the other unusual one?”
“Owens.” I heard more tapping sounds. “On this one, everything looks fine, but there’s a whole list of items the buyer wanted changed after the house inspection. You usually don’t ask for too much, even in a buyer’s market. If you do, the seller can say no to the changes, and the contract is dead. Then, you wait until someone else is willing to pay more, or wants fewer changes. There’s more profit that way.”
“So Ned’s buyer asked for too much, and the seller didn’t want to do that. Is that in the contract?”
“Yeah. There’s a form voiding the contract because of the inspection. I’m emailing you both files now. On the Wilson contract, look at the time frame. It shows a period of only a couple of weeks for the sale. Pretty short, but again, not illegal.”
“Why would someone do that?” I said, “other than to get out of the contract?”
“Exactly. You need anything else, let me know.” Cal knew his role as my right-hand man, and that I’d probably be calling on him again.
I checked my email, and the two files that he sent were waiting to be opened. Once I saved them on my hard drive, I opened the first one, for Bert and Amy Wilson.
Bert and Amy – sounded like something out of Sesame Street, I thought with a chuckle.
If Jack had read this file before, he apparently didn’t notice what Cal had. Not that I thought Jack would’ve, since he knew about as much about hokey real estate deals as a drunk knew about virgin drinks: they were out there, but you’d never seen them.
I went to the page that Cal had said looked fishy and read through the text. He was right. I thought back to when I bought my condo, and how much time I wanted to get everything done. If I’d had a place to sell first, I would’ve needed that done before I bought the condo, and that could’ve taken a while. The time frame on the Wilson contract seemed a bit short, but that didn't make it illegal. So why do that?
I found the name of the seller’s real estate agent: Eric Townsend. I looked up the name and called him. I got voice mail that said to leave a message, or if I wanted I could try Eric on his cell phone. Lest he miss a potential customer, I thought. I jotted down the number and dialed it.
Two rings and he picked up. “This is Eric.” I could hear static and road sounds in the background, indicating he was driving somewhere.
“Eric, this is Sam Spade,” I said. One of Humphrey Bogart’s most famous roles was also my favorite nom de plume when I didn’t want to be me. “I was a friend of Ned Healy’s. I don’t know if you heard about him.”
“Yes, that was unfortunate,” Eric said, although his tone didn’t match the sentiment. “I’ve worked with him on a deal or two.”
“That’s what I’m calling about,” I said. “Trying to wrap up a few things with his estate, you know.” Eric uh-huhed on the other end like he was commiserating with me. “I was looking at the Wilson file. Bert and Amy?”
“I know the one. That deal fell through.” Eric spoke in a high, squeaky voice, like an angry mouse.
“I see that. I noticed that the time frame for them to sell their house was less than a month. Isn’t that a bit short?”
The connection broke in and out, then I heard him say, “...can’t say what happened.”
“What’s that?” I asked. “You don’t know what happened?”
There was a long pause, filled with static hiss. “Who did you say you were?”
“I’m a friend of Ned’s.” He was being cautious now. I knew I was losing him, and not just because of a bad connection. “I’m just trying to close out the Wilson file. Ned had a note on it, wanting to make sure the Wilsons were okay with how things turned out.”
“Oh, is that all?” The edge left his voice. “I really shouldn’t be telling you this, but the Wilsons had changed their minds. They didn’t want to sell their home after all, so they left the time frame short.” Static cackled through the line.
“You were breaking up,” I said. “You said the Wilsons didn’t want to sell their house?”
“Right. They realized they’d made a mistake, that they didn’t want to sell their house and move, but they already had a contract on it. That contract included a clause that made the sale contingent on their being able to close on a new house. So they put a contract on another house, but made sure that that contract would fall through by including a really short closing date. Once that happened, they could back out of the contract with the buyer of their house.” What a trusting guy, to tell me so much. But, most people will say way more than they should just because they like to hear themselves talk.
“I see their predicament,” I said. Sympathy can get you almost anything, too.
“I assure you that’s not how things normally happen,” Eric responded quickly. “But what could I do?” He began the job of CYA. “I didn’t know what they were thinking until things started to unravel.”
“I understand,” I said.
“The Wilsons are happy, and so was the buyer of the home that the Wilsons originally wanted. I know their realtor, and she worked everything out.”
“All’s well that ends well.”
“Exactly,” he said.
I hung up, sat back, and stared up at Bogie on the wall. The problem with the world is everyone is a few drinks behind, he seemed to say.
I pretended to raise a glass to him. “I’m behind,” I said. He silently concurred.
I looked up the name of the real estate agent listed on the Owens file, the second contract that Cal thought was unusual. That agent, Fred Gallegos, didn’t answer, nor did he have voice mail or a cell phone number. I thought all real estate agents had about ten numbers to try, but I guess Fred valued his privacy more than the others.
I found the number for Garrett Owens in the file and dialed it. After four rings, a machine picked up. Duh, I thought, looking at the clock. It was just after one o’clock. Owens was probably still at work. I perused the file again and found a work number. This time I got a real person.
“Garrett here,” a deep voice said.
Again I introduced myself as Sam Spade, and said I was a friend of Ned’s.
“That bastard,” Owens spat out. “You tell him for me that I hope he rots in hell.”
I paused. “I can’t do that,” I finally said.
“Why?”
“Because he’s dead.” I gave him the Reader’s Digest version of how Ned died, leaving out Jack’s suspicions that Ned had been murdered.
“Oh,” Owens said when I’d finished. “That is too bad, but I can’t say that I’m sorry.”
“Why is that?”
“Ned screwed me over. He was supposed to be my real estate agent,” he emphasized the words harshly. “I’d never bought any property before, and he was supposed to be working for me. That’s why you hire them, right? But not Ned. He helped me find this really sweet deal on a house, but then he messed it all up for me.”
“How’d he do that?” I was curious now.
I heard a sigh that carried all Owens’s disgust and disappointment with Ned. “Look, I’m only thirty, and it’s harder than hell for someone my age to get ahead. I want to invest in some property while the prices are down. We found this great old house in Cherry Creek,” he said, referring to an area of expensive homes just southeast of downtown Denver. “It was a bit of a fixer-upper. At one time it must’ve been a great home, and expensive, but compared to what they’re building there now, or renovating, it needed some work. Anyway, it was perfect for me. I’m pretty handy, and I could see putting some time and money into it, and I’d have a nice profit on my hands. Or I thought I might just sit on it for a while, and sell it to a developer.”
“What happened?”
“That bastard Ned screwed things up for me, and the deal fell through.”
“How’d he do that?”
“The place needed work, like I said. But after the inspection, Ned told me I should ask to have a bunch of the stuff fixed up as a part of the contract. He said there were things that I shouldn’t have to worry about, things that every buyer asks to have fixed. And I listened to him. I had a whole list of things that I requested the seller fix, and if she didn’t, I would back out of the contract. Hold on a second.” I could tell Owens had covered up the phone, and I heard a muffled conversation in the background. “I’ll get that to you,” he told someone else, then “Sorry about that,” to me.
“No problem,” I said. “So you lost the house.”
“Yeah,” he said, regret replacing anger.
“But why are you mad at Ned? He could’ve been giving you what he thought was the best advice.”
“Because he had a back-up buyer,” Owens said, the bass voice getting louder and angrier again. “He had someone else lined up with an offer that was above the seller’s asking price. That meant a bigger commission for Ned, but he had to get me out of the way first. That’s why he told me to ask for all the repairs.”
“Isn’t that unethical?”
“Damn straight. I was so mad at the guy I never wanted to see him again.”
“How’d you find out all that?”
“I contacted another agent, and she did some digging. I don’t think she was supposed to tell me anything about the new contract, but I think she knew how angry I was. And I won’t tell you who she was, so don’t ask. Ned was pissed off that I knew anything, and he went to her about it. The whole thing turned into a real mess.”
“You talked to Ned about all this?”
“Yeah, but he said his hands were tied. He denied making any suggestions to me at all, and said that it was all my doing to ask for the improvements, even though he was the one pushing me into asking for all the changes.”
“Do you know who was buying the house after you?”
“Beats me,” he said. “Why don’t you ask Ned? Oh, uh,” he stopped. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“It’s okay. Was the seller’s agent...” I flipped through the file, “Anthony Wolinski?”
“Yeah, that sounds right. Look, that’s all I know. I washed my hands of the deal and Ned Healy. If I see him on the streets, I’ll—.” He paused again, realizing again that unless Ned had figured out a way to cross over from the other side, he would never be walking the earth again. Owens definitely had a case of foot-in-mouth disease. “Never mind.”
I thanked him and hung up.
Ned Healy did not seem to be a very popular person, I thought as I sat at my desk, mulling over the conversation I’d had with Garrett Owens. Owens seemed to have the same kind of volcanic anger that Samantha Healy had toward her ex-husband. I wondered if Jack was aware of how others perceived his brother.
Did Ned screw over more clients in addition to Owens? I wondered now if I’d stumbled upon a motive. Did Ned have back-up buyers on other homes so that he could make more in commission? Or was the house Garrett Owens lost the only one with a back-up buyer? And if that was the case, what did Ned hope to accomplish? Based off of his monetary records, he certainly didn’t have the cash to invest in a house that needed renovation. Was Ned helping someone else, and benefiting in some way from that? I didn’t know a lot about the houses in Cherry Creek, but I knew that real estate values in that area had been skyrocketing for a number of years. Someone could stand to make a lot of money on a house, or the lot, just like Garrett Owens had planned on doing. Was Ned in on a deal with someone?
Another thought pinged my brain. Would Garrett Owens kill out of anger? Let’s face it, I knew nothing of the man, only that he had an incredibly deep voice, and he was incredibly angry with Ned.
I needed to investigate this further. I grabbed my car keys and headed out the door.